On empty platitudes of racial solidarity from arts organizations
by Gabriela Lena Frank
From Facebook: All my professional life, despite some tantalizing offers, I've resisted joining academia for a lot of reasons, but primarily because I couldn't stomach working at institutions slow to bring on social progress despite issuing expensive initiatives and platitudes. I know, I know, I could have been part of an effort to hasten that change, but I partly formed GLFCAM from a place of impatience to see, if in the tiny forum of my home, I could move more nimbly towards inclusion. I felt that I could institute the ethics I believe in, and if mistakes were made, they would be solely mine.
But I'd be lying if I said that was the whole story. My plan was to stay a freelance composer, one of the distressingly few women of color with a substantial mainstream career, who somehow managed to hang in there when the attrition rate was exceedingly high for us black and brown folks in the conservatory in the 90s, for lack of cultural support. And you know that the ranks were thin to begin with. (I got lucky with finding lifelines in a few singularly incredible mentors and peers, but that's another story.)
The real impetus for GLFCAM is a hate crime. And I honestly couldn't say those words until recently. I'd been mainly framing this pivotal incident during a cross-country trip with Jeremy as a run-in with an a**hole at a truck stop who suddenly announced his presence with a bodyblow from behind, knocking me down and showing me his gun in MAGA solidarity. It was during the 2016 presidential election with Trump gaining ascendancy, and we were in a red state. That sorry jerk did what he did because he could. Terrified, I managed to buy my candy and water, and join Jeremy who was outside keeping the dogs cool in the desert heat. He had seen this open-carrying pendejo enter the store and was instantly on alert. We theorized that the woman sitting back in the guy's truck looking miserable was likely a battered spouse.
For the next several days, I could barely concentrate as a guest at a music festival in New Mexico. GLFCAM began to take form, breathtakingly fast, spurred by years of misgivings, exasperation, and disappointment towards a field that I still love so much. Grateful as I was for my close white friends who have always treated me with love and respect, I was tired of feeling so damn alone, racially and culturally, out in the field; and like a nuisance who should just appreciate her professional luck when I did quietly point things out.
The first year at GLFCAM, there was no application process. We got turned down for grants and with the largesse I've enjoyed from symphony commissions (i.e., my privilege), Jeremy and I chose to pour in our savings and fund this damn thing anyway. ("Fine, we like beans.") And I invited in 19 wonderful diverse emerging composers I had met from my guest stints over the years who formed Cycles One, Two, and Three; and twelve trusted friends and colleagues as performer mentors. It was a transformative year for me while our president began to prove himself every bit as bad as many had feared; I also busted out of MAGA-induced writer's block with multiple ginormous premieres on fancy stages.
I quickly learned that just because I'm Latina, female, and disabled, that doesn't mean that I have the ability to command into existence a diverse cohort on my own, especially considering that my school and work life largely consisted of peers from the demographics that classical music has long welcomed. One of the smartest decisions I made was to rely on nominations for applicants from my composers themselves, and this opened the floodgates of multi-cultural and improvisational ingenuity to my tiny school in our second year. These nominations built our family, not me.
I got a little better at private fundraising so that while our budget is modest, and I must still do this work without pay, our scholarship is over 90% plus travel support, and I've built a small but wonderful and dedicated staff invested in social justice. Jeremy and I took on a second mortgage (gulp) for a fixer-upper and over eighteen long months, turned it into lodging for our musicians. Recently, we've begun partnering with major institutions to get good paying work for our composer alums, and we invest time -- a LOT of it -- in talking with people personally to get their referrals for new talents, both for composers but also our performer mentors. An institution like the American Composers Orchestra has been phenomenally helpful, too -- When asked, they happily provided their list of people who applied for their orchestra readings specifically addressing the absence of Black and Latino voices. I personally invited many to apply, and some of them don't know it yet, but: They're coming to GLFCAM.
Each year, we're getting better with our representation -- Different aesthetics, ages, demographics. I'm definitely a child of Jesse Jackson's idealistic Rainbow Coalition, which he adopted from the original movement from the sixties, and during these GLFCAM residencies, I sometimes get suddenly emotional to see so many beautiful people and talents, eating dinner prepared by Chef Stephen, happily bonding, working together, and above all else, LISTENING to one another. These friendships are enduring, and the musicians are leaving an impact on the small lovely town of Boonville, CA where I live, including on the largely Latino students, many of whom are Dreamers, in our local school district.
Before the pandemic hit, we also publicly committed to greening our ways, rather than greenwashing. Personally, I feel that artists should become eco-farmers, and that the climate crisis exacerbates all social ills, including racism and xenophobia. Oh yes, it does. On our small homestead, we try to give our artists a taste of a back-to-the-land self-sufficiency lifestyle, too.
Through it all, I've been composing. I'm an artist, first and foremost. But that shouldn't preclude being attentive as a humanist. I'm aspiring.
What a long post this is... A platitude is short, but deeds of promise take a while. If you've made it this far, please know that I commit — and GLFCAM commits — to social justice. Our programs are still evolving. I might be old here — my beautiful, funny Peruvian mom says I'm making HER feel old with all of my white hair — but GLFCAM is young, and we, too, can do better.
Please be safe, everyone.
In gratitude,
Gabriela
Gabriela Lena Frank is the director of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history (August, 2017), Gabriela was born in Berkeley, California. Winner of a Latin Grammy, she has composed for leading orchestras and worked with luminaries like cellist Yo Yo Ma, soprano Dawn Upshaw, the King’s Singers, and the Kronos Quartet. She also is a passionate believer in service, and has brought her love of music into hospitals, schools, and prisons. Learn more on Gabriela's bio page.